We asked our bloggers to share their biggest dreams for the church. Here’s what they imagine.
The 5-year-old exclaims, “There’s my friend!”
Following his pointing finger, I see a child I have never set eyes upon, running through the sprinkler in her front yard. “You don’t know that child, son. She’s your friend?”
“Well, not yet,” he impatiently responds and, with that, he’s off leaving me open-mouthed with wonder. This was the best sermon I’d heard in a month of Sundays.
The ancient Celts would say a child is “fresh from God.” Welcome the little children, for they receive you just as you are. In the eyes of a child, you are worthy, you are loved, you are enough.
The double-edged sword, however, is that it follows that the grown-up next to you, likewise a recipient of such a child’s grace, is also worthy, also loved, also enough.
My dream, then, is that the sign out front of the church would be changed from “All Are Welcome” to “All Are Included.” I think “inclusion” … [Read more...]

This week we asked the Outlook bloggers to share a “ministry hack” they’ve learned. Here’s what they shared.
Oscar Wilde once lamented to a friend that he was so busy that he had to write a long letter. I don’t want to deliver a Wilde-like, lengthy message from the pulpit. My desire is to shape the sermon into a kind of spell, an invocation and incantation that picks us all up on Sunday morning and carries us somewhere new, or perhaps somewhere we’d forgotten that we knew. May the Spirit breathe through my words, not my long-windedness.
I don’t know if what follows is a “hack” per se, but rather a helpful, creative exercise.
I once workshopped an essay that was all over the place like the attention of a foraging squirrel or like how my 1-year-old daughter eats lasagna. Musing over the mess I’d splattered upon a great number of pages, the wise author Lauren Winner suggested that I try to summarize my ideas in one single … sonnet. After regarding her with a look deer generally … [Read more...]

Love is patient, love is kind…
The minister begins the reading from her leather-bound Bible, and the famous love ode in 1 Corinthians filled the sanctuary. The young couple standing before her are not listening at all. This bride and groom are lost in each other’s eyes.
The scripture does reach the ears of the couple seated three rows back, causing one partner’s hand to reach for the other, their fingers entwining just as they have done for 52 years — for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health. The minister continues:
Love is not envious or boastful…
Three attendants continue to beam brightly, but one blushes as pink as the bridesmaids’ dresses, remembering how earlier today she had glared at her baby sister dressed in white. And a groomsman studies the sanctuary floor, remembering how he bragged about his sexual conquests in college, cheap sex that was anything but making love.
Love is not arrogant or rude…
In the … [Read more...]

“Between the rupture of life and the rapture of language lies a world of awe and witness.”
— Christian Wiman
I was 20 years old, wearing Birkenstocks and composing flowery poetry, much of it set to guitar in hopes this would make me attractive to young women. It was not my style to darken the door of the campus auxiliary auditorium on Wednesday mornings for weekly chapel.
Then came the Tuesday morning when planes exploded into skyscrapers.
The day after 9/11, there was standing room only for the service. I don’t recall what Scriptures were read. Only that a wild-eyed young woman standing next to me cried out, “Je-sus!” when we heard a jet outside. The campus was not far from an airport. Jets flew overhead all the time. Suddenly we noticed with religious devotion.
Later that week, an English professor gave his class a poem by W.H. Auden: The unmentionable colour of death / offends the September night. These lines speak to the outbreak of World War II in September 1939. But … [Read more...]

We asked our bloggers to share what they have learned about managing conflict in ministry. Here are their reflections.
What should really worry you is if you preach long enough withoutconflict.
In a bitterly-divided, hostile culture, public discourse is brutal. It may be tempting to tiptoe around the truth and envision the congregation like a collection of bobblehead dolls, nodding in agreement to benign clichés and pious platitudes. But I don’t think that a sermon is “liked” in the same way as a Facebook post.
Please understand: I am notsuggesting that a preacher step into the pulpit looking for a fight. Sit with the rest of the congregation under God’s judgment, especially when you step into the pulpit. The Word of God is a double-edged sword: If a sermon never cuts into the hearts and minds of a congregation, perhaps the preacher should consider whether the message is incisive for the one preaching. Robert Frost claimed that if there are no tears for the writer, there are … [Read more...]

Whereas a year is a wondrous fleeting thing, and there is no time like the present and no present like the time right now.
Whereas a holy, motley manner of roaming, foot-sore rabbis, gurus, saints, sages and mystics all concur that we mortals may glimpse The Infinite Incomprehensibility only by sitting with a child at play.
Whereas one ancient wanderer in particular muttered quixotically, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Whereas that of the greatest worth may not be measured in spreadsheets, charts or productivity, but actually in crayons, s’mores, dandelions and many other incarnations capable of yielding utter squealing joy.
Whereas except ye see signs and wonders, ye shall not believe.
Whereas worms need to be rescued from sidewalks; whereas puddles need to be stomped; whereas pillow forts need to be carefully constructed and joyfully toppled; whereas even the rainiest roaring days need to be filled with awe and wonder.
Whereas one bright-eyed … [Read more...]